Page 24 of All Night with the Cowboy
“Stop,” she whispered, her hand rising between them, fingertips settling just below his collarbone.
“Why?” He leaned forward to touch his lips to hers again, needing his mouth against hers, craving the taste of her, the feel of her against him.
“You just need to stop,” she said, softly this time but not quite a whisper. “We can’t do this.”
Tanner pulled back, clearing his throat and dropping his hand from her back. His leg hurt like crazy again all of a sudden, although maybe it was because he’d been good at ignoring it when he was distracted.
“You should get out and rest that leg,” she told him, treading water as she moved away. “Or we could do a few laps together. Just take it slow.”
Tanner dragged his eyes from her, thinking how much he’d like to swim to her, wrap his arms around her, and show her exactly what she’d been missing all these years. But since he couldn’t do that, then maybe swimming was a good distraction.
“Yeah, let’s swim,” he grunted out.
Lauren moved into place beside him and started to do the breaststroke. “Just move through the water however feels best for you. I want to keep everything very low impact today, we have plenty of time to build up slowly.”
Build up slowly?Maybe there was hope for him after all. Because if that kiss was a sign of things to come, then perhaps his time away with Lauren wouldn’t be tedious after all.
Chapter 8
“TANNER, can we talk about what happened before?”
Tanner opened his eyes. He was lying beneath a coconut tree on the grass between the beach and their house, and until that moment his only concern was whether a coconut might fall on his head. But this kind of conversation was worse. He decided to keep his eyes shut and pretend he was asleep.
“Tanner?”
He groaned and rolled to his side. “How about we forget it ever happened?”
“It’s not that easy.”
Yeah, he was well aware of that. The only thing he’d thought of since was how damn good her lips had felt, all pillowy and melted into his. Her skin was so soft, her fingertips so light when they’d pressed into his skin. For the past few hours, he’d tried to relax, tried to ignore the aches in his body, and attempt to put Lauren out of his head. All he’d succeeded in doing was thinking about every inch of her instead.
“It’s complicated between us,” she said, moving closer. He looked sideways and saw her shuffling over, toes buried into the perfect white sand as she stared at him. “I don’t know why I thought we’d be able to do this.”
“You want out?” he asked, finally pushing himself up so he could look at her properly.
“Honestly? I don’t know. I mean I want to help you, but even after all this time, it’s just…”
“Complicated,” he said. “I know.”
They sat there a bit longer, him looking at her and her looking out at the ocean. He studied her profile, admiring her features. She was beautiful sitting beside him without makeup on, her face a slightly lighter shade than her arms. She was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see her eyes, but the way she had her long dark hair scooped up into a ponytail, bottom lip sucked in beneath her top teeth, it made her look like the schoolgirl he’d known. She was more mature and she was a successful, grown-ass woman now, of course, but he could still see the girl she’d once been lingering close to the surface.
“We never were good at keeping our hands off each other,” he said, laughing at the memory. She’d always been in his lap, arms around his neck; when they walked side by side her hand was always slipped into his back pocket. They’d been joined at the hip since their first date—until the day she’d abruptly ended it.
“So this is just, what, a chemical reaction? We’re programmed to, I don’t know, behave a certain way around each other?” she asked, turning back to him.
Tanner shrugged. “Hell if I know,” he admitted. “The only thing I know for sure is that I never wanted tosee you again for as long as I lived, and now that we’re here, I’m starting to think that was pretty goddamn immature.”
Her laugh was soft, uncertain almost. “You do realize that I had only just turned eighteen when I broke up with you, right? We were kids.”
“We didn’t behave like kids and you know it.” He bristled just thinking about it, remembering how she’d blindsided him. They’d spent so many long hours, bodies intertwined, talking about spending the rest of their lives together. There hadn’t been a cheerleader in sight who’d ever tempted him to stray from Lauren, not once. “But yeah, I know it’s childish to hold on to a grudge this long.” Only it wasn’t a grudge. He’d gone from opening up to someone for the first time in his life to having his heart ripped out. No one he’d met since, not all the women he’d been with and met over so many years, had come close to Lauren, or to the memory he had of her. Maybe that was his fault for not dealing with his shit and keeping her on a pedestal.
“Can we try not to let anything intimate happen again?” she asked. “I mean, we’re obviously attracted to each other, it’s not like a lot has changed physically over the years.”
“Except for my ninety-year-old body?” he teased as a smile crept across his lips.
“I saidifyou didn’t do what I told you to, then that’s what you’d end up with, stupid. Not that you’ve got one now!”
Her gaze drop lower, he could feel it even though her eyes were hard to make out through her sunglasses. Then he watched her swallow and he reached out a hand to touch her arm. He shouldn’t have, but there was somesand clinging to her skin and he carefully brushed it away.
